


Weathering the Storm

by Rehearsal_Dweller



Series: Learning Normal, Finding Home [14]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, Next generation fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-24
Updated: 2014-01-24
Packaged: 2018-01-09 17:31:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1148850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehearsal_Dweller/pseuds/Rehearsal_Dweller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A week after a record-breaking argument, two half-bloods have to reconcile.<br/>(Or rather, they choose to, because life-or-death situations will do that to people.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weathering the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> This one follows near-immediately after Storm Front, just so you know.

Mari left a week ago. Ellis hadn’t heard a word from her since the day she stormed out of the arena and, reportedly, ran to the Poseidon cabin to call her dad.

Bobby wasn’t speaking to him, although Ellis suspected that that was less a question of loyalty to his big sister as personal annoyance for ruining a day’s worth of activities due to not paying attention to what they were doing. He probably wasn’t speaking to Mari, either.

Maya, on the other hand, was being weirdly affectionate and patient. She had allied herself with the large part of Camp who were treating the whole thing like a bad breakup.

Everyone was acting so _concerned_. It was weird and was making Ellis super uncomfortable. He just wished they’d all leave him  _alone_. Only the thing is, summer camp is like a very, very small town, and everybody always knows everybody else’s business. The worst offenders – worse, even, than Maya – were his mother’s siblings from the Aphrodite cabin.

Why wouldn’t everybody just leave him alone? He was  _fine_!

“El, sweetheart, just talk to us,” Lizzie, the Aphrodite cabin leader, kept insisting.

“No, okay? Why can’t you get it through your heads? I don’t want to talk to you! I don’t want to talk to anybody!” snapped Ellis. Okay, he might’ve been a little on edge.

Lizzie and her brother, Rudy, just sighed and looked at him, shaking their heads.

“Oh my  _gods,_  stop looking at me like that!”

Ellis fled, after that.

Yeah, okay, so he and Mari were-are-will be close. So they’d  _fought_. No relationship is perfect, right? Why did everybody insist on treating this one dumb fight like it should be the end of his world?

(Because it was.)

Maya found him up a tree four hours later.

“There you are, Sparky,” she said. “Get down here.”

“How come?” he called back.

“Because  _Liz_  is worried about you,” said Maya.

“Yeah, no, I’ll stay up here, thanks.”

Maya laughed. “I would, too. Nah, I’m here ‘cause you skipped lunch. Brought a sandwich.”

Ellis dropped out of the tree, landing poorly but solidly by Maya’s feet. “Sandwich?”

She handed him the sandwich. “We don’t even have to go to the mess.”

“Thanks, Maya.”

“So.”

“Not again…”

“How are you?”

“Maya, May, I’m fine.”

“No, you aren’t fine. And that’s okay.”

Ellis sighed and dropped, cross-legged, to the ground. Maya sat down next to him and nudged his shoulder. “C’moooon, Sparks. If you’re gonna spill to anybody, it’d better be me.”

“Why is this whole damned camp so invested in my relationship with Marina Jackson?” asked Ellis around a mouthful of food.

“I can’t speak for anybody but m’self, but… I know that _I_  am worried as your oldest friend besides each other,” Maya answered honestly. She leaned back against the tree, looking up at the sky. “I’m probably one of the only people who’ve ever seen you two fight before, but it’s never been like this, El. You were a mess, physically and mentally. You’ve always been so… collected, both of you. Well,  _you_ , and you keep Ocean under control. I can’t imagine you two without each other.” She sighed. “Actually, no, I can. And that scenario ends with an Ellis Grace who is _very_ reserved and not very interesting, and a Marina Jackson who doesn’t make it to 15 years old.”

“Why would you -”

“Because without Mari, you’d keep everything locked up and everyone locked out. You’re that kind of person,” Maya interrupted. “And little miss reckless would’ve gotten herself into an  _awful_  lot of trouble a long time ago.”

“Yeah, well -”

“Ellis, you’re  _miserable_. Everybody’s all over you, trying to help you feel better after your breakup. Just take advantage for a day. I heard that Ryan offered to bake you cookies! Ryan makes the best cookies on the planet!”

“We didn’t break up!”

“Then where is she?”

–

_“Shit shit shit shit n-no-no-noooooooooo!”_

Marina scrambled away from her attacker, further into the cave. She’d been disarmed a while back, had watched her sword be kicked over an edge and down the side of the mountain. That had totally sucked.

She was pretty sure that this guy’s sword was either dripping with poison or slightly soul-sucky, based on how that gash in her side felt.

Fortunately, her mother had taught her to always be prepared, which in this case meant carrying a second weapon. She took a deep breath, steadied herself, turned, and threw the knife, praying to all that was good and holy – well, mostly Apollo – that it would go where she wanted it to.

She hit her target. He lasted just long enough to realise that he had a celestial bronze knife buried in his chest before dissolving into golden dust. His stupid poisoned sword clattered to the ground as Marina stumbled against toward the wall.

She could hear rushing water somewhere deeper in the cave. She  _knew_ , she knew that she had to reach it. Water had never healed her quite as effectively as it healed her father, and freshwater was less effective than salt, but anything would be good right now.

“Keep going,” she muttered. “Keep going.” She walked toward the water sounds, using the wall for support as she limped along.

On the upside, she’d accomplished the favour she’d been asked out here to do. If nothing else, the wood and water nymphs from further down the mountain would be happy now. Before today, Marina had never even  _heard_  of spirits of pollution, but hey, that’s the modern world for you.

The little stream flowed from high up on the wall, splashing down to ground-level in a little teeny waterfall.

_Waterfall._

Marina stuck her hand into her pocket and dug out her last drachma.

As she threw the coin, she stumbled again.

“Fleecy!” she called, watching her coin flip through the air toward the water. “Show me Ellis Grace!”

She hit the ground, hard, just as Ellis’s face appeared in the mist around the waterfall.

“Ellis!”

“Marina?” he said. “Ree, are you okay?”

“El, I’m pretty sure I’m dying,” Marina said clearly. “I have to be quick, I only had one coin.”

_“What?”_

“Ellis, I love you,” she called. “You know that, right? I’m sorry for what I said, I was angry, I was hurt -”

“I know,” said Ellis, “I know, I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have – I’m sorry.”

“Do me a favour,” Marina started, then winced. “Do me a favour and call my mom and dads after this, okay? Tell Nico I need rescue ASAP.”

“Yeah, of course,” replied Ellis. “What happened to you?”

“Have I mentioned lately how much I hate poison?” said Marina.

“You were – okay, I’m hanging up on you now, sweetheart,” Ellis declared. “I love you. Don’t die.”

“Doing my best.”

“I love you,” repeated Ellis.

Marina smiled weakly, crawling closer to the creek. “I love you, too.”

–

Marina woke up to midday sunlight streaming in through the Big House’s windows.

Ryan, Cabin 7’s best healer, was standing by the right side of her bed. “Hey, sleeping beauty,” he greeted.

“Hi, Ry,” Marina replied. “How’re things?”

“Pretty great, all in all,” Ryan answered. “I mean, you had the Camp in quite a state for the last two weeks or so.”

“How d’you mean?”

“First you caused a frikkin’ hurricane,” he reminded her, “then you disappeared. And half of Camp was trying to comfort El over your apparent breakup, which he denied with all of his might, by the way. Then suddenly he’s gone running out of the halfling cabin at three in damned morning to meet your dad at the Big House because  _somebody_  had gotten herself poisoned!”

“Ah, well, not my fault,” said Marina half-heartedly. “Where’s El? And can I go?”

“Ellis is at lunch,” answered Ryan. “He’s barely left this room in nearly two days. Just eat some of this,” he handed her a square of ambrosia, “and sit in here patiently for a few more minutes while I check that nasty cut you got.”

Marina nodded and nibbled at the ambrosia dutifully and didn’t even flinch when he started adjusting bandages and such.

“There,” Ryan said finally. “You’re free to go.”

Marina bounced to her feet and gave him a quick kiss. “Thanks, Ry.”

“Don’t run!” he called after her as she scurried out of the room.

(She ran.)

She came to a stumbly halt when she crossed into the dining pavilion and realised that the entire camp was staring at her, stunned.

Ellis jumped up from his seat at the end of the Halfling table.

For about thirty seconds, it felt like nobody even breathed.

And then -

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

And then there was some running and hugging and very enthusiastic kissing on the part of Marina and Ellis, at which point everyone else stopped being all stunned and actually started reacting (mostly by cheering).

“That was the worst kind of teen movie cliché,” Marina muttered, with her forehead resting against Ellis’s.

Ellis chuckled. “Yeah, that was kind of awful.”

“Can we  _never do that again_?” requested Marina. “Like, never. I mean, I know we’ve got to talk about this whole mess sometime, but…”

“Not now,” agreed Ellis. “And yeah, we can definitely agree to never do that whole fighting-not talking thing again  _ever_.”

“Hey, so, uh, d’you think maybe we could go somewhere where the entire population of Camp isn’t staring us down?”

“Sounds like a plan. Where to?”

“Cabin’s free, isn’t it?”

 


End file.
